A Vampire Reads Twilight
by the real jinxauthor
Summary: In this short story, a vampire decides to read the bestseller and ends up on a date with a human.


A Vampire Reads Twilight

Joe stared down at his worn and battered red converse shoes. There was a box at his feet. It was wrapped neatly in brown paper and had only his name written on it. This would normally be a source of mystery to the average person, but not for Joe. He already knew who had left this package, he just didn't know what it was. Joe bent down and picked the thing up, tearing away the paper. A book. _Twilight_.

Joe frowned and shuffled back into his apartment. Hadn't he heard of this before? He turned the book over and scanned the summary. Yeah! This was about vampires!

Enthralled with his newest addition to a copious vampire memorabilia collection, Joe flopped onto his sad, sagging couch and began to read. True, his real love was movies, but he had been known to crack open a novel now and then if it dealt with his favorite subject.

And so Joe read. Bella moves to a town called Forks that nobody cares about and where it rains every day. Well, that's not a very promising beginning. Joe rolled over onto his stomach and skipped a few pages until he discovered a new name, Edward Cullen. Joe chuckled, with a flowery name like that he was sure to be a vampire. And so this Edward fellow loves Bella and she him…

Joe sighed and closed the book, feeling disgusted. He had heard this song and dance before.

He rolled to his feet, yanked a hoodie over his head, and went down to street level with the book still clutched in his hand. He had half a mind to throw it in the nearest dumpster, but as he gazed up at the night sky, he thought about its deliverer. It was sent to him for some reason, right?

Joe stood in the middle of the sidewalk as people unafraid of the night passed by on their errands. He opened the book again, ignoring everyone, and flipped past a hundred or more pages of nauseating flirting. What's this? Three new names and a plot seemed to have fallen from the sky. Joe backtracked a couple of chapters and read about the antagonist bloodsuckers. Ah, now that's more like it! These were real vampires. Travelers, mortal killers…

"I know what you are."

Joe snapped the book shut and looked sharply at the girl who had spoken. He had never seen her before, of that he was certain. She was short and fairly pretty, with large brown eyes and softly curling, long brunette hair. Nice rack too, but Joe did his finest to pretend he didn't notice.

She smiled at him coyly and slowly walked closer, "You are obviously a horribly impoverished college student looking for someone to relieve you of a night of boredom."

He smiled back, she was absolutely wrong about everything, but he let his innocent grin allow this interesting new Bella to believe she had guessed correctly.

"I'm Camille," she said, now standing directly in front of him, "Camille Heinicke."

"Hello, Camille. Do you always make a point to talk to horribly impoverished strangers?"

"No," she bit her lip hesitatingly and in a most becoming way, "My plans for tonight fell through, and I am not impoverished. I see no trouble in treating a handsome stranger to dinner."

_That's a lie_, Joe thought, _she knows better than to go off with strangers in a city like this_. He looked into her eyes and absorbed the images of her mind in an instant. He saw a girl on a mission. He could feel her resolve and determination. This was for her. Do something crazy, prove you are in control… She needed to do something reckless, bounce back from a failed relationship. Joe saw a man who must have been her father. On top of everything she knew he would have a heart attack if he knew what she was doing, and the thought delighted her. _Bad girl…_

Unaware of just how well her wish for danger was coming true, the girl asked for his name.

He offered her his arm and began to walk with her, "Joe."

"Just Joe?"

"Joe Fannin."

"Well, Joe, what do you want to do?"

Joe clutched the book firmly. What would Edward Cullen do? He didn't know, he had skipped those pages. Okay, forget him; he's a wuss anyway. Switch to what he wants to do… What did he want to do? Damn. He couldn't focus. He could hear her heart beating rapidly. She was petrified, and well she should be. Vampires smell fear, y'know, and this girl reeked of it.

Joe stopped suddenly and shook his head. Stupid girl, why was she doing this to him? Stupid Joe for going along with it… She was too tempting.

"Joe? Are you okay?"

He glanced at the girl… Camille. She was concerned, but not for him. She was worried that she may have picked up a psychopath.

"Bowling," he blurted.

"Huh?"

"Let's go bowling. There's a place not far from here."

"You want to go bowling?" she laughed, "Not to a movie or dinner or a club?"

"Nope, bowling."

She chewed on her lower lip again, "Okay."

Twenty minutes later, Joe was losing to a girl and Bella had been kidnapped by a sadistic vampire. Joe was starting to identify with James more that Edward.

"You suck," Camille said, but it was friendly. Joe tried not to laugh at the truth in her jab. She was much calmer now, almost like she trusted him. Did that make him charming?

Camille offered him some nachos which Joe understandably refused. She jumped up while Joe perused the book and managed to make yet another strike. By the time she returned to him, Bella had had the snot beaten out of her and Joe was chuckling to himself.

"You must really like that book. I've never known a guy to read on a date before."

"This is a date?"

"Of course."

Joe chanced another glance at her. What was that expression? Was she hurt that he wasn't paying more attention to her? Joe closed the book and set it on the table.

Camille smiled prettily. She leaned towards him across the table and pulled the book to her, "So what are you reading anyway?" Inspecting the book. "Twilight? That's funny."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't take you for the Twilight type."

"A friend sent it to me."

"Oh. Do you like it?"

Image of Bella close to death, vampires that sparkle in the sun, "It's amusing" said with a grin.

Camille smiled and slid the book back into Joe's hands. They left the bowling alley around midnight. Joe hadn't even broke a hundred, he was too distracted. Camille was laughing and talking in the rapid-fire language of females. Joe was putting on a valiant effort not to grab her and sink his teeth into her throat. He often opened the book to pull his thoughts away from blood.

"Um, this is my place."

Joe closed the book, frowning. It was over. He had finished Twilight and in truth, he was highly disappointed. But why? It wasn't as if he expected anything from the novel to begin with. Frustrated, he turned his mind to Camille.

She was standing on the steps to her apartment, biting her rouged lower lip, again. With a shock, Joe realized she was considering inviting him up. Her thoughts were making her nervous. He walked up the two or three steps to her and there they stood, inches apart.

Ah, sweet Bella she was. So trusting… Her breath caught and her fragile heart was beating like the wings of a hummingbird.

Channeling Edward Cullen, Joe reached out and brushed her hair away from her face and leaned in as if to kiss her.

No such luck. The next he knew, Joe was gulping huge mouthfuls of her blood. Camille was unconscious. Whoops. Oh well, surely this was much, much better than kissing!

Her heart stopped.

Joe pulled her closer to draw one last draught of blood and released her. He paused, looking down at his Bella. She really wasn't so interesting. She resembled a broken doll lying there on the concrete steps. Joe bent down and used a bit of his own blood to seal the incriminating wounds on her neck. He then proceeded to rob her of her wallet, jewelry, and cell phone. Hot damn! She wasn't kidding about not being poor! Now he had enough cash to pay this month's rent!

But the night was far from over. Joe sped away from his deceased date and raced toward the person who had sent him the book in the first place. By simple running, he was across town in five minutes.

"Hello, Mikey."

"The difference between you and me is that I always knock."

Joe stood in Mikey's apartment, a hovel almost as pathetic as his own. At least Mikey put forth an effort to keep it clean.

Joe placed the now much beaten novel on the coffee table in front of Mikey and pushed it towards his fellow vampire.

Mikey stared at it in his typical fashion of revealing no emotion. Gently, he picked it up and crossed over to his bookshelf.

"Did you read it?"

"Yeah. It sucked."

Mikey hesitated. His bookshelf was crammed full of paperback vampire novels. He didn't move or speak again until he had cleverly made a space for Twilight, "The humans love it."

"Sure, human girls."

"What do you mean?"

Joe sighed and kicked his heels up onto the coffee table, "Mikey, it's a romance novel. It's not about vampires at all. I mean, those guys in the book sparkle in the sunlight!"

"Edward impregnates Bella in the last book."

Joe's eyes bugged out and his whole body shook with riotous laughter, "Are you serious?! Haha! I didn't know we could do that!"

Mikey smiled softly for the first time that evening, "Neither did I. But did you really not enjoy the book at all?"

"Not really. It's just a whole bunch of bitching on the part of Bell and Eddie, isn't it?"

Mikey fidgeted uncomfortably, "It had no effect on you whatsoever?"

Joe stared at Mikey. The poor bloke looked to be on the brink of another one of his panic attacks. Something was distressing him, and that made Joe hate the stupid book even more. He had better give the boy something before he went into a quiet spell.

"I took a human girl on a date tonight."

Mikey whipped his head up and gaped at Joe, "A date? You? With a human?"

Oh good, he's still talking. Nice one, Joe, you've avoided anther meltdown-shutdown of Mikey.

"Yeah, sure. Don't know what got into me. I guess I started thinking 'If Cullen can, why not me?'"

"Was she cute?"

"Aw, hell, Mikey! Course she was cute. You think I'd stoop to entertaining humans for anything less?"

"Sorry, Joe, I didn't mean any offense. How did it go?"

Joe said nothing. He pulled Camille's wallet out of his pocket and showed it to Mikey. The other vampire didn't need to ask. When he breathed, "You killed her," it was a statement - not a question.

Joe shrugged, "Hate to break it to you, but Twi-guh-luh-high-gut is a story, Mikey. It'd never work in real life. Vamps can hardly stand each other, let alone a simpering human."

Somehow, these words had a calming effect on Mikey. He stood and Joe followed suit. Both men knew this meeting was over.

"Do you want to read the second book?" Mikey asked as Joe headed for the door.

"Mike, I would rather eat a pound of garlic than read another of those books."

"It has werewolves."

Joe froze, hand on the doorknob, "Well, maybe one more book can't hurt. The story can't get any worse, right?"

End


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